It’s arrived! Ok, I should back up a bit… Last month I was asked if I would like to try myprinting.com. It was a timely request, as I was about to do a large print of one of the photos in my Flickr stream.
myprinting.com isn’t your usual printing outfit. They focus on photographic wall panels in canvas, acrylic and aluminium, as well as photo books, calendars and posters. I decided to give the Aluminium Composite Panels a try (they also do foam-core panels, handy for marketing work), as I’ve not had the chance to try metal-back printing before.
The ordering process was remarkably easy and dealt with all the things that are usually an issue when you try and turn your digital images into physical things you can hold. Once you’ve uploaded your image file you can check the aspect ratio is suitable, and zoom and crop the image. It will also warn you if the image isn’t high enough resolution for the print size you have chosen, which is handy if you don’t want to mess about with DPI calculations! To give an idea of sizes, the acrylic panels go up to 120cm x 90cm. I found the UI pretty slick and easy to use, and the store also sells a range of frameless mounting solutions, so you can order those at the same time.
Once I signed up there was a friendly registration email, some discount offers and an order confirmation for my 30cm x 20cm Aluminium Panel. Shortly afterwards I received a dispatch notification with a tracking link, and a couple of days later a DHL parcel was waiting for me in the morning. All as it should be!
I have had issues with packaging with on-line print services in the past, but there were no problems here. Big reinforced corners, bubble wrap and a cardboard outer had kept the photo safe on its journey. Not too much packaging, and not too little! Perfect.
Photos of photos are always a bit tricky, but hopefully you get an idea for the product. The print is on an aluminium/foam sandwich, so absolutely solid, and the colours a rich, with a slightly textured finish. With an invisible mount, these would be perfect for a modern gallery display, or for marketing displays. The overall feel is polished and professional. Definitely not a budget affair. The print is of this picture, which I took a couple of years ago with my Canon 30D (a 3504×2336 pixel file). The printed image looks better than it does on screen, and gave me what I was after: something ‘organic’ which colour-keys into the room it is going up in.
Thank you to the myprinting.com folks for kindly providing the print for this post – you can read more reviews and info on their WordPress blog http://myprinting.wordpress.com, and they are on Twitter as @MyPrintingUK.Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some holes to drill in a wall… :) You can also check out some of the best quality prints here at BumbleJax.
Many thanks!
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